


Desperate Men

by PositivelyVexed



Category: Il buono il brutto il cattivo | The Good The Bad and The Ugly (1966)
Genre: Capture, Escapes, Frottage, M/M, Post-Canon, hunger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 05:21:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17698424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PositivelyVexed/pseuds/PositivelyVexed
Summary: Fortunes come and fortunes go. The ability to sever a rope with a bullet remains.





	Desperate Men

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deepandlovelydark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepandlovelydark/gifts).



“You bastards all got the wrong idea. This is my money. Mine, you hear? I came by it honestly, and you’re the thieves, taking it off an honest man.”

The gaunt-faced soldier in gray shoved him up against the rock, and Tuco had to tilt his head back to keep his revolver from leaving an indent in his chin.  “Stop your bullshitting,” the man said.

The soldier next to him, the one with the dapper mustache, was more amused than anything. “No, let him go on. Tell me, what does an honest man like you do to earn one hundred thousand dollars in Confederate gold?”

Tuco drew himself up and squared his shoulders. “That’s between me and General Lee.”

The gaunt-faced soldier shook his head in disgust. “Get him in the back of the wagon with the other one.”

Tuco was shoved roughly in the back with the muzzle of a rifle, and he felt fury welling up in him. He had barely had time to enjoy his money. It was his, and though he’d never expect pigs like these to understand it, he’d done more than any man should have to to earn it. He’d crossed deserts and faced torture and stared down death itself in the arena. He'd more than earned his fortune. After getting free of Sad Hill, he’d ridden for two days to try to find civilization, somewhere he could actually spend his money. If what seemed like the entirety of the Confederate army hadn’t come across him while he was trying to catch some sleep, curled up on top of his gold, he would have fought every last one of them to the death before they took it off him.

As it was, he was marched over to a wagon with his hands in the air. He was so preoccupied with the gold, it hadn't occurred to him to wonder what the officer had meant by “the other one” until the flap on the back of the wagon was drawn back. He nearly burst out laughing to see Blondie sitting inside, his hands chained in front of him.

That almost made everything else worth it.

Almost.

“Funny number of men riding around with one hundred thousand dollars in gold on their hands, wouldn’t you say?” the soldier with the mustache said.

“More than I wanted to see,” Blondie said, looking Tuco up and down with a vague look of disdain. Tuco was irritated by how unruffled he was by it, like he could play off riding straight into a swarm of soldiers into something inevitable and dignified.

“Bet you’re regretting offering that money to that mission now,” the soldier with the mustache said to Blondie.

Blondie's mouth cracked into an enigmatic smile.

“What?” Tuco cut in, irritated.

“Oh yes, he’s very charitable," said the mustache, grinning. "Tried to give it away to the first mission he came across that told him a sob story. Luckily, we were there too, and caught him first.”

“You tried to give it away?” Tuco asked, offended to his core by the stupidity in that.

Blondie shrugged. “A man only needs so much for himself. And it’s heavy.”

“Not so heavy now,” said Mustache.

Blondie ignored him, and looked at Tuco. “Hanging on to it all didn’t help you any, did it?” 

Being reminded of that made him spit on the ground, disgusted with the whole thing. He struggled a bit as the soldier forced him into the bench opposite Blondie, and shackled his hands and feet. He pulled at them irritably once they were left alone.

He leaned forward, pitched his voice lower. “Hey, Blondie, where do you think they’re going to take us? Another camp?”

“You should know better than anyone what they do to criminals.”

The memory of rope cinching tight around his neck was the kind of thing that never left a man, and he felt it now.

“We didn’t even steal that gold," he hissed. "It’d still be in an unmarked grave if not for us.”

“They didn’t believe me when I tried to explain that to them. I don’t think they’ll believe you any more.”

They were distracted by the sound of a heavy cart rolling past, stationed down with armed soldiers, guarding a heavily padlocked chest in the center.

Tuco felt his stomach twist as all that gold that had so briefly been his passed him by. The thought of it disappearing back into the pockets of rich men who didn’t know how to spend it, who wouldn’t appreciate it as Tuco had, was too painful to contemplate. He stole a glance at Blondie, who was watching the whole thing intently with one of those damned unreadable expressions on his face. A soldier in front of their own wagon shouted something, and they lurched forward. The two of them watched out the back as the gold rattled down the road, further and further from them with every step.

The mustached one, who was apparently sitting at the front of the wagon, leaned back in to look at them. “Don’t worry, it’ll be on a train and out of your life before you know it. And you won't have long to worry about it. Don’t worry though, we’re not without pity. We got ways of lifting men like you up when you’re down.”

He mimed a noose pulling on his neck, cocked his head, and crossed his eyes.

After he withdrew and dropped the canvas back in place with an ugly laugh, they looked at each other. An uneasy sizing each other up took place. Finally, Tuco laughed and nodded in the direction of the departing soldier.

“Hey, Blondie, these idiots think they’re going to hang us.”

Blondie pulled out a cigarillo and a match with his chained hands and scraped his thumb across the match, lighting it. He took a long drag and quirked his lips up at Tuco.

“Yeah, it’s a real laugh.”

Blondie studied the cigarillo, then offered it to Tuco. Tuco frowned, then took it. Blondie squinted against the setting sun as they were carted off, further and further away from riches and towards whatever gallows awaited them.

 

-

 

After being jounced along on the wagon trail until nightfall, they stopped that night to make camp in the burnt-out remains of a town.

Soldiers came and unchained their feet and marched them at gunpoint to the town’s former jailhouse. They didn’t bother removing the shackles around their wrists, which struck Tuco as overkill. As further overkill, three soldiers were left to guard them, including the mustached one.

“Hey, you going to feed us?” Tuco said, peering out of the cell as the men leaned over their cooking pot.

The youngest of the soldiers looked up. “The prisoners want a last meal,” he said.

The lieutenant in charge shook his head. “No.”

“No?” said Tuco. “That’s the rules.” He’d had at least a dozen last meals in his lifetime, and they’d varied in quality, but he’d never not had one at all.

“Last meal doesn’t apply in wartime, when food is being rationed. We don’t even have enough to fill our own bellies, much less for thieves who will be dead by lunchtime.”

“Thieves! Thieves and murderers he calls us,” he stage whispered to Blondie, who was sitting in the shadows of the cell. Tuco could only make out his eyes glittering in the dark. “When we just found the two hundred thousand dollars you lost?”

Blondie didn't answer. Tuco suspected without a gun or random luck on his side, the man really was useless. And Tuco had no intention of waiting around to see if Blondie’s luck was still with him. 

The lieutenant snorted, stuck out a boot and kicked the bucket of dried corn by the fire. “You can see that two hundred thousand dollars didn’t go to filling our food stores. That money’ll be on a train to Richmond by now, and Davis will use it as he sees fit.”

“Not on us, you can bet,” Mustache said. “They know there’s no future for us in the West. They’ll pull us out after we’ve starved a bit longer.”

“If it’s money you need," Blondie said, "I know where to look.”

The soldiers all looked up. Blondie had lit himself another cigarillo and leaned forward out of the shadows. He spoke softly, but there was always something about the way Blondie spoke that made men stop and listen.

“I got three thousand dollars right here beside me.”

Tuco’s eyes bolted to Blondie.

Mustache, who had been stretched out on his side, poking at his corn, sat up and turned to them. He was looking between the two of them with a look of naked huger.

The lieutenant scoffed. “Don't pay them any mind, Roberts. We already searched them both. They’ve got nothing on them.”

“Not on us. _Him."_ Blondie jerked his head toward Tuco and paused, letting the soldiers ponder that with blank expressions. "There’s a three thousand dollar bounty on his head. Easiest thing in the world to turn him into one of the local towns. You were gonna hang him anyway.”

“Not a chance," the lieutenant said, pulling himself up. "The towns around here are all loyal to the Union. A man would have to abandon his post and his uniform to do what you're suggesting. Unthinkable."

Tuco was watching the other two men, Roberts and the young one, and he thought it didn't seem so unthinkable to them. They were eyeing Tuco up and down with a keen interest only greed can spark. He leaned up against the bars, nodded sideways at Blondie. “He’s right, you know. I’m a wanted man. He’s turned me in a dozen times before, and then he shoots the rope. We split the money. You let us out, we can split it with you too.”

“Enough,” said the officer. “Stop talking nonsense.”

Roberts was still staring at them, a calculating look slowly spreading on his face. “Yeah. I heard about you two. I had a cousin saw that you play that trick back in Dry Gulch.”

“He’s probably worth more than three thousand dollars now,” said Blondie carelessly, like it didn’t mean anything to him either way. Tuco stole a glance at him. He wasn’t quite sure whether to be annoyed by that detail, given their history. But it didn't matter. He could see that Blondie had him.

"Four thousand, at least," Tuco said, nodding.

The younger one was staring at the lieutenant, looking for guidance.

“Men about to hang will say anything to cheat the noose,” said the officer. “Go to sleep.”

That ended the conversation, and the three soldiers withdrew into three separate, silent corners of the jailhouse. The officer finished eating, and stretched out for bed.

Meanwhile, the two of them sat uneasily beside each other in the cell, waiting in shadow, glancing at each other. Trying to ignore the gnaw of hunger. Still, neither were terribly surprised, a few hours before dawn, when a shadow unpooled itself from Roberts' corner of the room, and put a pillow over the officer's face. The lieutenant thrashed for a few minutes, and then was still. He continued to where the young soldier lay, and did the same to him. And then, Roberts stood before them, breathless and wild-eyed.

“All right. Let’s go.”

“I’m glad you decided to do business with us,” said Tuco, but he wasn’t feeling so sure he did want to go into business with this fellow, with the blood of his comrades still on his hands and a mad kind of hunger in his eyes. 

"I've been looking for a way out of the service before the service got me killed." He nodded at the men on the floor. "Their own fault for not recognizing an opportunity when it presents itself," Roberts said. He held up the key he had taken off the lieutenant, and beckoned Blondie over to the bars.

Blondie stepped forward, and he unlocked the manacles on Blondie’s wrists. Tuco shoved his hands through the bars too, hopefully.

Roberts shook his head.

“Not you. Slight adjustment to the plan. See, I don’t have time to fuck around with pulling cons. I just need some money. And if I’ve got to split money, I’d rather split it two ways rather than three.”

“What?” said Tuco.

He turned to Blondie. “Help me get him to the nearest town, and you can have your life and half the money. I ain’t greedy. But this bandito is the one who robbed my cousin's store last year, and I’d like to see him hang for it.”

“You bastard! I’ve never harmed a fly—“

“It’s a deal,” said Blondie. Tuco turned to him, unable to believe himself stabbed in the back again by Blondie.

“You Judas,” said Tuco. “You lying, filthy—“

A kind of hideous déjà vu settling over him, hardening into rage.

“Sorry, old friend.” Blondie looked away.

That’s when Tuco decided to hell with it, this bastard needed to pay. He threw himself at Blondie, and caught Blondie right in that pretty face of his with his fist. Blondie moved fast, and rolled away from the punch. A struggle ensued, and they ended up on the floor, with Blondie on top of him. He had Tuco facedown, chained hands pinned beneath him, and Blondie's hands around his neck.

“Hey, now, don’t kill him, we need him alive,” Roberts said. He raised his gun, but looked reluctant to fire. He seemed to know that that would bring the attention of the rest of the camp on him. 

Tuco growled. Blondie had him pinned, but for some reason, he was holding back. He could still breath. He caught a glimpse of Blondie’s face over him, and he wasn’t sure what it was—a look, hard and sharp, and a vague jerk of his head, that made Tuco think.

“Oh, goddammit,” said Roberts. He heard the man fumbling for his keys. Unlocking the door.

Tuco jerked his eyes at Blondie, and considered what he thought he saw in them. He went limp then, playing dead. Before he closed his eyes, Blondie nodded.

“You idiot, I don’t care about your feud, if you kill him before we can turn him in-” Robert said, stepping through the door.

He made to pull Blondie off, but he was not prepared for Blondie to let him go, and for Tuco, not being choked after all, to turn on him, taking his legs out from under him. It was Blondie who stepped on the gun in of his hand until he released it, and shot the man while he was still wincing on the floor. 

The two of them sat together in the aftermath of that, breathing heavily in the middle of the room.

“You bastard, you could have got me killed. There must have been a better way to do that.”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Blondie shrugged, that smug pretty face inviting anothing fist. Tuco restrained himself, but barely.

He was busy leaning over the body, looking for bullets and anything else he could take off the man. So Tuco joined him, wrinkling his nose at the moth holes, finding the key to his manacles and unlocking them himself. The bodies were short on bullets, but they had guns, even if they were the sort Tuco wouldn’t normally bother to crack nuts with himself.

“Let’s go,” said Blondie, and Tuco followed him out into the night air, where the horses were standing, swishing their tails.

By the time the alarm was raised, they were long gone.

 

-

 

They rode across scraggly hills scattered with scrub brush until even the brush faded away and they were riding across sand. Tuco tried not to think about the last two times he had crossed a desert. Doing that would only get him thinking about murdering Blondie again, or about whether Blondie intended to murder him, and after the day he’d had he didn’t think he had the energy for either right now. He couldn’t rightly remember the last time he’d properly eaten, not just scavenged something off a dead soldier to keep the gnawing emptiness in his stomach at bay.

He hadn’t even gotten the chance to spend his fortune in gold on a meal.

The only thing that kept him from despair was the knowledge that he was alive. Alive, and he and Blondie still could pull a con together between the two of them, if they needed to.

It was well into afternoon, he realized some hours later, as he roused himself from a half-sleep while riding. They had not stopped more than briefly, to let the horses rest, all night and morning, and the horses were slowing. The setting sun now lit up a few low white buildings nestled at the foot of the mountains. A mission. He knew enough of the layout of the missions around here, from past years of conning his way through them posing as a penitent, to guess that this was one of the ones that had been abandoned after changing hands between too many countries in too short a time. The kind of abandoned settlement that was everywhere, and only getting more common now that another war had come. The mission now was just a few tired stucco buildings baking under the sun.

They made their way there, by unspoken agreement.

Tuco staggered off the horse, and stretched his legs, feeling them pop. The one thing he wanted to do before sleeping was eat.

They crossed the dusty plaza, where they found nothing but an old well with a handle that creaked and bobbed in the wind. He had the uncanny feeling of having been here before. Oh, maybe he had not been here in particular, but too close all the same. Penniless and on the run and desperate. He looked over at Blondie, and could see that he was eyeing it all with the same grim recognition. So he felt it too. He tried to hide it, but Blondie was, under all that cool, a hungry man too. He might be the kind of idiot who gave money away, but he did not like being left with nothing. Especially when it hadn't been his choice.

They entered the living quarters and walked down the hall to the kitchen. It was easy enough to see that after the brothers had left this place, soldiers had moved in. There were remnants of it everywhere—a patio that had been turned into a shooting range, the refectory dirty with the remnants of tin cans and metal mess plates. It looked as though the soldiers had left in a hurry, clearing out without catching everything.

In the kitchen, that proved to be a lucky thing for them. Tuco stumbled to the cupboards and tore through them, looking for food. He turned up nothing but empty cans, and threw one across the room. Blondie whistled sharply, and pointed toward an overtipped box by the door. Inside were half a dozen forgotten cans of food. Peas, pork, even a half-full flask of whiskey.

Feeling faint and dizzy from riding, they sat down to eat. It wasn't anything like he would have bought with gold, but all the same, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten so well.

They didn’t build a fire, just found a few musty blankets that had been abandoned in the back of the living quarters and tried to ignore the dried blood on them. They laid out on them, and ate their dinner, dipping into one can and then another. They passed the whiskey flask back and forth until it was empty, tasting the dust from the other man's lips on the rim.

It was like being partners again.

Although he didn't mean to think about anything but eating, he found himself glancing over while he ate at Blondie, who was looking at him too with a look that was hard to read. Interest, maybe, though he didn't know what kind. Blondie still had some dried blood under his nose, and a black eye that Tuco had put there. Tuco liked the look of that, liked knowing he’d messed him up. Even if his own face felt like it was in worse shape. He chose to ignore that and focus on the positives.

“The bounty trick still has some life in it, eh, Blondie?”

Blondie looked at him. “Guess so. Course, there’s a lot of men with bounties on their heads out there.”

Tuco forced a laugh. He’d been feeling warmly inclined towards Blondie since escaping, and decided that he wasn’t going to let Blondie ruin it. Plus, he didn't really want to go to the trouble of finding a new partner.

“You chose to work with me, not Angel Eyes,” he pointed out. He didn’t focus on the fact that Blondie had betrayed him in the end there. That had been when they both thought they had a fortune in gold in front of them. “You know a good partner when you see one. And you know no man can survive like I can.”

Blondie snorted. “As long as I’m there to shoot the rope.”

Tuco grinned, despite anger stirring in his breast. “You said yourself, I might be worth more than three thousand dollars now.”

“Yeah. That may be so.”

Tuco considered, shrugged magnanimously. “Or we could change it up. Do it the other way around. You get caught, and I shoot."

“I’m not that stupid.” Blondie laid back, his legs spread in a lazy sprawl front of him, not seeming to notice or care that he was mostly on Tuco's blanket.

“Not that brave, you mean. Besides, they’ll never put your name on a wanted poster. They don’t know your name. They can’t very well put ‘Blondie’ on the posters, eh, Blondie?”

Blondie put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. “No. And I wouldn’t trust you to shoot the rope.”

Tuco thought about that, and had to admit that yeah, he wasn’t sure what he’d do, faced with the chance to leave Blondie swinging.

“You doubt I could?”

“Didn’t say that.”

No. He wasn’t stupid, Blondie.

Raising his gun, he aimed at the rope holding the lonesome chandelier in the middle of the room. There was something in proving he could. That Blondie wasn't special for that one trick of his.

Blondie’s hand closed over his arm, shook his head. “Don’t waste bullets.”

His hand rested warm on his arm, that same surprising heat that always came off him, when you’d expect a man like him to be cold to the touch. Room temperature at least. But he was the warmest thing in a cold room. Tuco put the gun down, as he felt a familiar irritation that Blondie should be so good looking. Looks were wasted on a man like him, who never seemed interested in using them to any worthwhile ends anyway, judging by the way he never looked at women.

If Blondie hadn’t been so good with a gun, and so bad with his prayers, he might have actually been suited to a place this. Moving silently through silent halls, unmoved by temptation, indifferent to earthly appetites, like Pablo.

On the other hand, Blondie still hadn’t taken his hand off his arm. Had, in fact, tightened it as Tuco had looked at him, while Tuco had been thinking about that damnably pretty face. Maybe not like Pablo at all then.

It wasn’t gold, but fuck it, it was something.

He felt certain it would be wrong to do this in a house of God, but since they were only in the living quarters he decided it wasn’t sacrilege. He crossed himself, all the same, just to be safe.

Blondie was watching him, half-wary, half-amused, as Tuco reached for him, his hand coming to rest on the waist of Blondie’s pants, where he could feel the heat coming off him in waves. Tuco was about to speak, to propose a simple trade-off. Helping each other out. But Blondie had other ideas. With one fluid movement, Blondie pushed him back against the floor hard, and was on top of him, straddling him, and any questions about whether he was suited for these halls were put to rest. The evidence against was poking him right in the stomach.

"If we're going to do that, we're not going to do it your way."

Tuco grit his teeth, unable to bite back the gasp of surprise. Surprise that sounded alarmingly like excitement when it came of his mouth, not that he’d ever give Blondie the satisfaction.  

“You bastard. Without me, you’d be dead right now.”

Blondie still looked down on him, with that same lazy amusement that made Tuco grind his teeth. Blondie began to straighten the collar of his shirt.

“And without me, you’d have hung months ago.”

Tuco’s hips jerked up against his will, which he hoped would be read as defiant, but he was afraid the message was lost as he felt the warm length of Blondie’s cock rubbing through the coarse fabric of their clothes. He tried to tell himself it was just the sensation, and not knowing it was Blondie, that made him so hard so fast.

Blondie was cool and calm in this, as he was in everything. He thrust against the body beneath his, his hands planted on either side of his head, their faces close enough to spit at each other, or bite. Tuco wrapped his fists tight around his shirt, but he couldn’t stop himself from bucking eagerly. They were both careless of the buttons and coarse cotton between them as they moved, working into something resembling a rhythm, the full length of themselves rubbing up against each other through their clothes, and he felt like if Blondie could just keep going…

As if sensing what he was thinking, Blondie slowed and stilled, and Tuco cursed loudly.

“What’d you stop for?” he asked, not at all liking the whine that entered his voice. Blondie’s fingers brushed something on his neck, and he realized, with a bout of fury, that he was touching the rope burns on his neck, from his time standing on the cross in Sad Hill, still, days later, visible. He gritted his teeth and growled.

“Son of the whore that birthed you.”

“Like you said. There’s always the rope for us to return to.”

Tuco squeezed his eyes shut tight and felt pleasure building up in him. He gave himself over to it, scrambling to thrust up against him too, get as much as he could for himself in this He came with a moan, relief washing over him for a moment, before he felt the sticky warmth spreading across his lap, clinging to his pants when he moved.

He looked down, dizzily, as both he and Blondie watched the wet spot on the front of his pants grow.  Blondie undid his belt one-handed, and eased himself out. It felt obscene, staring at it, in the plain daylight coming through the windows. A few strokes later, he came too, right on Tuco’s jacket.

“Pig,” Tuco spat when Blondie got off him, and stretched out beside him, but he wasn’t feeling so put out he didn’t stretch out too. After he got off, he always felt better. Like he could do anything. In fact, he laughed. “You’re lucky I’m such a forgiving man, Blondie, to an old friend like you.”

“I wouldn’t call either of us lucky, considering."

The gold. For a moment, he'd almost forgotten it.

“So what,” he said harshly, waving it away dismissively. “I clawed my way up from nothing and I can do it again.”

Blondie smiled tightly, and lit another cigarillo and passed it to him. “Tomorrow is another day, huh?”

He thought that there was a decent chance tomorrow would end in murder as long as they were working together. But it seemed like better odds tomorrow would bring a snapped rope and three or four thousand dollars. And another chance to get off. And maybe, just maybe, another fortune was out there somewhere, waiting for them. One never did know. 


End file.
